Skeeter's Blog

No vision, no direction, let's just see where things take us.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Hibernation over?

Hello all,

I'm back from the dead! No excuses. As a good friend of mine would say, I just stiiiiiiink. For those of you that know me, I should emphasize that I meant stiiiiiink in the figurative sense as I have been known to wreak from time to time. Just ask my wife, I'm sure that's part of the reason she'll have nothing to do with me most nights.

I'm kinda feeling like Stella these days as I'm starting to get my groove back. After a long hiatus, I bottled a batch of beer last evening. Nothing like the sweet smell of beer on your hands to get your juicing flowing. Moreover, I brought the boys along with me and introduced them to the bottling experience. I wish I had field trips like that when I was their age!

We were all out of juice boxes this morning so Tracie poured some apple juice in a clear water bottle for Ben to take to school. In the morning, Ben told his classmates about our outing to Mr Beer. When it was time for lunch he unpacked his lunch bag and his friends naturally jumped to the conclusion that he was drinking beer. That cracked me up.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Monkeying around!

Chalk one up for the baboon! I regret to inform my loyal support group that I was unsuccessful in my quest to read a book in less than 3 weeks. In short, I failed.

As Simon correctly guessed, Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs was the book of choice for my first reading assignment. I'll dispense with a summary at this time for a couple of reasons; one, I only made it through a third (i think) of the book and secondly it's been some time since I last picked it up, so the details are a bit sketchy to me. Don't let my failure fool you though. It's an interesting read. In particular, I'm impressed with the style of writing as the author has elected to present her theories in the form of a story. I like stories.

I started off well, and after 4 or 5 days I was definitely on pace to reach my intended goal. Unfortunately I got side-railed though. I know surprise, surprise. What may truly come as a surprise to you though is the reason behind the derailment, ... it was in fact another book that got me off track. Yes, I actually signed out two books from the library! I placed two books on hold and they just happened to become available at the same time. So what was I to do. I picked them both up and brought them home.

The other book was one I'm sure most of you are familiar with, The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton. I'd been wanting to read this book for some time and sure enough once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. Well, at least for a few days anyways. I made it half-way through the book before life grabbed me by the throat and brought my reading to a halt again.

Though I was unsuccessful in what I initially sought to achieve, it wasn't a total failure. I've got a library card and I still have the books in my possession for another two and a half weeks thanks to the magic of renewing! Next time I'll have to remember to try to renew the books before they become due. Silly me.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Three Weeks

Three weeks. Depending on the context, it can be a lifetime or a blink of an eye. In today's post, it refers to the length of time that I can borrow a book from the local library. It took me 10 years to get my first library card (actually 11 yrs but who's counting), it took me 10 days to sign out my first book. Now the question becomes how long it will take me to actually read the book. More to the point, will three weeks be enough?

To answer this, we most certainly need a poll!

Can Skeeter read a book in 3 weeks?
1) No problem, heck even my 4 year old can do that!
2) Probably, when you think of it, it's only 10 pages a night!
3) I don't know, you've got a family now, time's precious!
4) No way, the baboon at the local zoo has a better chance.

As an interesting aside, can you guess what book I've chosen to tackle? Look no further than Crawl Across the Ocean (that was close, I almost didn't get it in there) for the answer.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

A Zinger, Forever Lost?

Earlier today, I had come up with a real zinger, an amusing remark that was sure to garner a chuckle from all who were fortunate enough to read it. At first I thought I would post it at Crawl Across the Ocean (I love those plugs), a response to one of Declan's thought-provoking pieces. Upon further reflection though, I decided that it would be a disservice to my loyal readers not to put it front and centre on Skeeter's Blog (no need for a link here as you already know where it is, but I have to tell you I was tempted, very tempted). Unfortunately there was a thing called "Work" that got in the way. I tell you if they didn't pay a decent wage I'd ...

Anyways here it is several hours later and I'm finally ready to unveil my masterpiece. There's just one thing holding me back ... it's gone. For the life of me I can't remember what on earth it was. I thought it might be related to the discussion on the NHL that I read earlier today at Crawl Across the Ocean, but alas I'm still drawing a blank. It's as gone as those things we say to our wives (significant others) that they try to remind us of, but for whatever reason we just don't remember. I swear they make the stuff up sometimes.

Oh maybe it just wasn't meant to be. My time will come.

... If all goes to plan, this time tomorrow I'll be sitting back and enjoying a pint at the Penny Whistle in Guelph. An excellent turn-out is expected for the Outlaw League's first official road trip (the Outlaw League is a junior hockey fantasy league). Hopefully the first of many to come. It's funny that in 7 years of NHL fantasy league play, not once did we talk about having a road trip to an NHL game. I'm sure there are a lot of factors; money being the first thing that comes to mind, and the time of year not helping much either. Having said that though, I don't think that's it. Quite frankly, going to an NHL game just isn't all that fun. I think I'll take it a step further and come out and call it flat-out boring.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still love to go to a play-off game where the crowd is into, and the overall intensity is raised a couple of notches but other than that, I'd have to say no thank you. It pains me to say this but that's the simple truth. I do still enjoy watching it on the tube once in a while, in particular some of the Western conference play, but I think that's largely due to having a vested interest in the game. I can't help but think how much more enjoyable the game could be if the players could actually skate. I love the contact but the clutching, grabbing, obstruction has got to go (many of us have been saying this for years). I don't really blame the players as you do what you have to do to compete. I never really played the game so obviously it doesn't mean as much coming from me but I did play a little ball hockey. My first thought was to say that I did my fair share of holding to try to contain the more skilled players but come to think of it, I didn't do all that much.

I enjoyed some limited success because I was willing to outwork my opponent (in fact my whole team was). We were first into the corners, we hustled back on defence, and we made quick changes. As I wasn't really a scorer, when I didn't have the ball I would go to the net to create some traffic, with the hope of maybe getting a rebound. I had no problem with a defender that tried to lean into to me and move me out of the way. What I did have a problem with though was when he held my stick. Essentially the defender was taking away a scoring opportunity by breaking the rules. That is a penalty and it should be called as such. That's just one of many such infractions that plague the game. Obstruction in the neutral zone (and all zones for that matter) is obviously a big one.

My point here is that if the NHL would simply inforce the rules that already exist (and maybe reduce the size of the goalie equipment a bit), the end result would be a vastly improved product. I know they've tried in the past for a few weeks but they always regress to the status quo. It's very puzzling and quite frankly it's killing the game in my opinion.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Catch-22

It's amazing how many phrases I use on a daily basis whose origins are unknown to me. Today I found myself typing "catch-22" really having no idea why it means what it means. A quick internet search could probably remedy this in no time at all but I choose not to make the effort. Instead, I come to my blog and start this post. I find my choice to remain ignorant on the subject somewhat puzzling. At the end of the day, I guess I just don't care enough about it to put forth the effort.